State Clears Education Official

November 08, 1985|By Jean Latz Griffin, Education writer.

An investigation by the Illinois State Board of Education has cleared Supt. Richard Martwick of the Cook County Educational Service Region of any wrongdoing in the handling of a $1.4 million special-education project.

In a statement released Friday, State Supt. Ted Sanders said Martwick`s office had been exonerated of charges involving the hiring of employees and the services provided to students.

Sanders also said there had been no formal complaints from parents or from the private schools involved in the program.

``Since we have no complaints from parents or the facilities providing services, and no evidence that students are not now being provided appropriate services, I find no reason to disrupt the normal and usual state board staff review of the administration of this project,`` Sanders said.

Sanders said routine reviews of the program would continue.

Acting on a complaint by the Illinois Federation of Teachers, the state school board investigated whether Martwick had employed people without proper certification in the federally funded program for severely handicapped students.

On Oct. 30, state school investigators examined the records of all administrators in Martwick`s office and took with them the employment records of Nathan Greenfield, a $27,000-a-year administrator. The union had claimed that Greenfield was hired to fill a newly created position because he was a son of a friend of Martwick`s, but did not have the proper credentials.

The state investigation showed that Greenfield has the proper certification for the position, which involves acting as a liaison between the special-education project and Martwick`s office and directing the vocational education activities of the project.

The union had charged that Greenfield and another employee were hired with money saved by the firing last summer of three teachers active in the union.

A state official who asked not to be identified said: ``We can`t get into whether there is patronage or not. All we know is all the people in the project have the credentials they need.``

Private schools had complained publicly that they were not receiving the occupational and physical therapists they most needed from the office. But state school officials said their investigations showed no evidence ``that students weren`t receiving appropriate educational services.``